When opening Mausers and Mod 70's up for .375 length cartridges, do many open the ejection port by judicious machining of the rear ring to allow loading the mag without having to feed the cartridges in base first?

Nobody has ever done this or seen it done?!!?

To be honest, I've never though it to be that big a problem loading a 375 Magnum through the port. Of course I've only used commercial Mausers for the big stuff. At times I have opened ejection ports to allow a bullet to swing clear when ejecting a live round. And on those Mausers that I have opened for the big 378 Wby case, I've had to modify the rear bridge a bit so the case will eject. If you are going to remove metal to aid in loading, you are correct to do it at the rear of the action rather than the front.


What problem are you having?

I was working on a pre-64 m-70 that I had picked up years ago cheap. Someone had rebarreled in in .458 win. They buggered up the feed rails, so I rechamberd to Lott and with a little work the rails hold and feed the longer cartridge fine. I noticed there was lots of room on the leading edge of the rear ring, almost looks like it was originaly going to have a clip charger slot. I milled it back approx .250 and now the port has plenty of room to load and eject loaded rounds with no interference. I am working on an FN com. action that I opened for .416 Rem and the factory base holes in the rear ring are very close to the front. It ejects, but you can definately see it hit the rear ring as it arcs out. I was thinking of milling a small scallop on the side of rear ring just to give a little more clearance for ejecting and loading . I remember looking at pictures of Harry Selby's .416 Rigby that was built on a std. Mauser and it almost looked like the port had not been opened. In all of my books, including Dunlaps, I don't think I have ever seen this addressed! Just wondering what everyone else does. Lee.

On the Whitworths I built for the 338/378 KT, you would not have noticed that I had opened the rear bridge unless you held it against a non altered receiver. The object is to make the modification look like it never happened, unless you are going for some wild look. Depending on the gun, wild looks can be good... Good luck.